


Hearbeat in 3/4

by impossibletruths



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Minor Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompt Fill, Slow Dancing, blink-and-you'll-miss-it minor, like very very very minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Luna would like a dance. Nyx is a little hung up on boring things like station and propriety and what's Right and Proper for a Tenebraen princess and a Galahdian soldier. They figure things out eventually.





	Hearbeat in 3/4

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chylan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chylan/gifts).



> written for the tumblr prompt lunyx + slow dancing. it got a little away from me

He knows the assignment is punishment, payback for the stunt he pulled on the most recent mission. Drautos gives him that crooked, humorless smile when he checks the glaive roster, and Nyx grits his teeth. He made this particular bed for himself; he’ll damn well lie in it. Hell, he’d take a full rotation of guard duty if it meant even one more person to to walk away from the fight. There are a lot of sorry bastards who deserve to see tomorrow.

“Ouch, Nyx,” Luche says when he sees the assignment, only mostly sarcastic. “First guard detail, now security. You’ll be scrubbing toilets next.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Crowe huffs. “He saved your life.”

Luche scowls but doesn’t push. Crowe is––as always––right.

“Might be fun,” Libertus shrugs. “Fancy party and all. You can tell us about it afterwards.”

“The prince’s birthday,” snorts Nyx. “Yeah, sure. It’ll be great.”

* * *

The uniform itches. The prince is twenty-one today, an auspicious occasion, and security is tight but he’s pretty sure his starched collar is tighter. Music and chatter waft through the air, and the birthday boy sits folded over at a table, talking to his guard and his advisor and commoner friend. He looks absolutely miserable. Nyx sympathizes. He hates formals.

“I, ah, never caught your name.”

The Tenebraen princess, the one he escorted into the city not two days ago, materializes at his side, staring out at the crowd. She meets his eyes with a smile when he glances down at her.

“It will have to wait,” he mutters, throat oddly dry. “I’m on duty.”

“Surely there’s no safer place for me to be.”

She’s smiling still; he hears it in her voice. He snorts. Royalty.

“Nyx,” he offers, humoring her. “Nyx Ulric.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Nyx Ulric.” For a moment she is quiet, as though waiting for a reply, and when he fails to offer one she says, “This is quite the party.”

That sure is one way to put it. Nyx has never seen so much money in one place. He still lives out of a one-room apartment in the refugee quarter so he can save enough to send home. The wealth in this room could do more for Galahd’s rebuilding than the past ten years combined. It’s almost sickening.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He shouldn’t chat. He is on duty and she is… distracting. But her face is an open invitation, and he’s a gentleman; he would never refuse a lady. “The music is certainly… nice.”

“Do you dance, sir Ulric?”

“I’m no sir. Just a soldier.”

“Surely no mere soldier?”

“A member of the Kingsglaive,” he allows.

“I see.” She considers that for a moment. “You did not answer my question.” There’s a mild rebuke in her tone, that sort of casual disapproval he’s pretty sure only royalty can mange, but when he steals another glance her eyes are dancing.

Nyx looks away, back to the dance floor where men in neat-tailored suits spin beautiful women in flowing dresses in complex, ever-changing patterns he can barely even follow, much less mimic.

“Not really,” he admits. “Never learned.” About the best he can manage are the traditional Galahdian dances, but those are wild, carefree things, none of the neat and careful formality of the Lucian court. He can’t imagine that is what she means.

“Then it seems I cannot invite you to see me through this next waltz.”

“I–– uh. I’m on duty, highness.”

“Yes, of course.” She adjusts her skirts. “Have a good evening, Glaive Ulric.”

She drifts through the crowd like the moon through the sky, smooth and graceful and shining. Nyx does his best to scan the room but she draws his attention the whole night, and he cannot help but half watch as she dances with the prince and turns down twice as many suitors as she humors. He does his best to ignore the sour regret curling in his stomach. He has a job to do.

* * *

Busy scribbling the last few notes on his (late) mission report, he nearly runs into the person walking down the hall in the opposite direction. He steps to the side to let them past at the last minute, just as they move aside for him, and a moment later they both step in the other direction. He huffs and glances up to scowl at the stranger and finds––

“My apologies for the dance, Glaive Ulric.”

“Highness.” The irritation bleeds away, replaced with leaping surprise. “I’m sorry. It was my fault, I wasn’t watching––”

“There is no harm done.” They stand there for a moment, dumb and mute, before Nyx remembers.

“Uh, I’m sorry, I’m late––”

“Oh! Right, yes, of course.” She moves aside. Nyx takes two steps past her before he hesitates.

“I, uh, thought you had gone back to Tenebrae.”

“No, I thought I might stay a little longer.” She glances aside as she says it. “My brother has things well in hand. I am… not needed.” There’s something odd to her voice as she says it but he is really late and doesn’t have time to talk.

“Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“I would like that,” she tells him with an honest joy, and he walks to Drautos’ office on cloud nine, and not even the captain’s sour mood can dampen his spirits.

* * *

He sees her thrice more that week, once with her quiet assistant and once with the prince’s commoner friend and once alone, sitting upon a bench in an empty area of the palace where even he would not wander were he not just returning from a mission. He’s fairly certain there’s still ash in his air, but he catches a glimpse of white out of the corner of his eye and slows.

“Nyx,” hisses Pelna. “What––”

“I’ll catch up,” he promises. Besides, it’s not as though he has anywhere to be besides the showers. Tredd rolls his eyes and, with a lingering glance, Pelna follows him towards the wing where the Glaive offices are housed.

Nyx retraces his steps and ducks down the near-empty hall.

It’s late. Not horribly so––the midnight bells have yet to ring––but still too late for a visiting dignitary to be out on her own. She does not look up as he approaches.

“Highness?”

She starts, dropping something into her lap. A hairpiece. Her eyes are wide when she looks up at him, shining in the half light of the hall, and she schools her face to blankness quickly. Not quickly enough.

“Glaive Ulric,” she says, hurriedly making to stand. “My apologies, I did not––”

“Whoa, it’s okay. Are you alright?”

“I…” She sinks back down onto the bench. “No, not particularly.”

Nyx hesitates. “May I join you?”

“Certainly.”

He sits next to her. The bench is made of hard, dark wood, hardly comfortable, but better than standing, especially after a day in the field. The princess watches silently.

“D’you want to talk about it?”

She presses her lips together and picks up the hairpiece again. It’s a beautiful thing, a comb made of ivory and pearl.

“I do not wish to burden you.”

“Burden away,” he invites. Her lips twitch, the shade of a smile, and his heart flips in his chest. Useless organ.

“The anniversary of my mother’s death approaches,” she says quietly. “It is… an unpleasant memory.”

“Oh.” Yeah, he gets bad anniversaries.

“I honor her and her fight––without her, King Regis would not have been able to beat the Scourge––but…”

“Doesn’t help much.”

“No.”

“I understand.”

She looks up from her hands. “You lost someone too?” Her voice rises with the question but it isn’t one, not really. He wears the answer plain across his face.

“My sister. And friends, but––”

“Family is the hardest, yes. Did you fight?”

“Oh, yeah. Local militia, then I joined the Glaive.” And here he is, still. Living the simple life of a soldier. 

She only nods. For a moment they sit there, side by side, almost touching. Then she sighs, deep and heaving.

“Twelve years and it is no better.” Her hands clench tight around the hairpiece in her lap. Nyx only considers it a moment before laying a hand upon hers. His fingers leave smudges of soot in his wake.

“We’re getting there,” he says. “It takes time, but it is getting better.”

She smiles at him. “Hope is not a quality I would have expected from you, Nyx Ulric.”

“I’m full of surprises.” He turns his hand over, an invitation. The princess sets the hairpiece in his open palm.

“Was this hers?” he asks, studying it a moment.

“Yes.”

Wordlessly he tucks her hair behind her ear and fixes the piece in her hair. Her eyes smile up at him.

“It suits you,” he murmurs.

“Thank you,” she says, no more than a whisper.

They are, he realizes suddenly, very close. She smells of flowers, and he smells of smoke, and that twines together around them, sharp-sweet. Her hair is silk beneath his fingers. Her lips part ever so slightly, and he wonders if she tastes like flowers too. She is unbearably lovely in the moonlight.

She is a princess in every sense of the word. He pulls back.

“I should, uh, clean up.”

She straightens, and his hand falls away from her hair. Her hair swings down, a curtain around her face.

“Yes. I should go as well.” She makes no move to leave, though. Nyx stands.

“I’ll see you later, princess.”

“Yes, of course.”

He turns, sets one foot in front of the other, and each step is heavier than the last.

He only looks back once, when he reaches the end of the hall. She sits where he left her, one hand raised to the glittering ivory-and-pearl comb tucked in her hair, framed by moonlight. His heart clenches in his chest.

He does not look again.

* * *

The anniversary ball is held the following week, and everyone who is anyone is in attendance.

Which includes, of course, the Kingsglaive.

“Free booze,” crows Libertus when Drautos tells them.

“Formal dress,” scowls Crowe.

Nyx thinks of the princess and does not say anything.

“You will be on your best behavior,” Drautos orders. “Or so help me, I will have you on desk duty for the rest of the year. Do I make myself clear?”

He does.

Which is how Nyx finds himself sitting in a corner with a couple of his friends, staring out at the revelry and not sure if he’s protecting himself or hiding. The princess is nowhere to be seen.

“I hate this shit,” mutters Luche.

“You hate everything,” Pelna tells him pleasantly. Luche downs his champagne rather than dignify that with a response.

“Looking for something, Hero?” asks Libertus when Nyx scans the crowd again.

“Or someone?” suggests Crowe with a knowing glint in her eyes. Nyx frowns.

“No, I just––”

A trumpet fanfare cuts his reply short, announcing the prince’s arrival. And on his arm––

His heart sinks. The princess looks resplendent, white and silver gown a sharp contrast to the prince’s striking black. All eyes snap towards the handsome couple.

“I hear they’re engaged,” mutters Tredd. “going to finally finalize the Lucian alliance with Tenebrae.”

“It doesn’t need to be finalized,” Crowe snorts. “That alliance already ended the war.”

The band strikes up again, a whirling melody Nyx doesn’t recognize, and the Insomnian prince leads the Princess of Tenebrae expertly through the steps, flying across the floor like two bodies in orbit. Even Tredd shuts up long enough to watch them.

Jealously curls hot and ugly through Nyx’s gut, and he chases it away with resignation. Of course it was never going to be him. He had half a chance of stolen affection and he squandered it in the name of station. He has no right to be jealous.

The dance ends in a swirling run of notes, and the prince dips the princess low in the center of the dance floor to swelling applause. The couple stands together for a moment, smiling out at the crowd, and then clear the floor as the next song starts. Nyx pays them half a mind as they speak with their heads close together, and then they split up––the prince makes a beeline towards the refreshments table where his commoner friend loiters and the princess––

“Why is she coming over here?” asks Libertus. Nyx’s pulse jumps and he stands abruptly.

“I’ve got to go,” he says, not bothering with an excuse. He sets his glass down and looks at neither his friends nor the approaching princess as he weaves his way through the crowd. He does not move quick enough; he is still close enough to hear Luche say behind him, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

The cool night air smells of flowers, and the breeze makes for a nice change from the heat of the ballroom. Strains of music spill through the high windows above, and stifled giggles drift up from the gardens below.

The balcony itself is blessedly empty. He braces his hands on the thick stone balustrade and closes his eyes.

Her heels click quietly as she approaches. The rustling in the garden grows fainter as the lovers below seek out privacy for their tryst. Nyx takes a deep breath.

“You dance well,” he says.

“Thank you.”

Crickets chirp, their song swelling in the silence between them.

“I had hoped to ask you for a dance,” she tell him. “Now that you are not on duty.”

“I don’t know how,” he replies automatically. “My apologies, princess.”

“Perhaps you have simply never had a partner to teach you.”

“They don’t really include dancing in Glaive training.”

“Well there is the trouble of it.” Her eyes dance with laughter. “But you are not working now.”

“No.”

“So dance with me.”

Nyx clenches his jaw. “What about the prince?”

Her eyes go soft. “Noctis is a dear friend, but he is a friend only. His interests lie with another.

Nyx almost wants to know who, but–– “You’re not engaged?” he blurts out. The princess laughs.

“Not in the slightest. Though King Regis did hope.”

“I–– I’m not sure what to say.” He feels sort of like an ass. Actually, he feels a lot like an ass.

“Say you’ll dance with me,” she answers.

Nyx pushes himself off the railing and bows neatly, one hand out in invitation. The opening notes of a new song soar through the air, something slow and simple.

“Princess Lunafreya,” he says, “may I have the honor of this dance?”

“The honor is mine,” she replies, taking his hand as he straightens. She steps easily up to him, one hand held carefully in his own, the other resting on his shoulder. Nyx keeps his own hand safely on her waist. The top of her head barely reaches his nose. She is, he notices, wearing her mother’s hairpiece.

“Shall we?” she murmurs, head tilted back to look up at him, eyes shining. He smiles.

“As her highness wishes.”

They drift slowly through the steps, a simple waltz, slow and stately. She stands a little too close, and his hand splays across her lower back, but there is no one around to see them, no one to comment on this indecency. He knows only the basics, but she moves with such grace he feels graceful himself, half-following her as the music soars around them, the princess of Tenebrae small and soft and immensely strong in his arms. He could stay in this moment forever, with her and the breeze and the music and the smell of flowers. 

The song ends far too quickly. He does not want to let go.

“They’ll miss you in there,” he says, still holding her.

“Yes,” she agrees, but she makes no move to pull away. “One more dance?”

Nyx releases her hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She shifts closer.

“People will talk,” he murmurs.

“Let them.” Her hand finds his forearm, coaxes his fingers down from the crest of her ear to her cheek. Her skin is smooth beneath his fingers. Her eyes shine. She parts her lips.

They are so close. It is such a little distance between them. He dips his head.

Her lips are soft as he imagined. She tastes of flowers and champagne, and sighs just so as he tilts her chin ever so slightly to deepen the kiss. The hand on his shoulder she moves to press against the side of his jaw, skin gentle against the rasp of his stubble, and he could stay here forever, lost in her.

She pulls away, pressing her forehead to his. Nyx breathes deep and steady and tries to quell his leaping heart.

“We should go back,” he says, hoarse. Shy hums in agreement. Neither moves.

“Gods,” says Nyx into their silence. “Crowe is going to give me so much shit for this.

That breaks their spell. Lunafreya pulls back with a smile. “A friend?”

“Yeah. She’d love you.”

"I would love to meet her, then.”

“I–– really?”

“Yes,” says Lunafreya. “I find myself in Insomnia for the time being, and would very much love to learn more of a certain soldier who showed uncommon kindness to a stranger.”

“Not uncommon,” Nyx says, awkward. “It’s just courtesy.”

“Uncommon,” Lunafreya repeats, “and appreciated.”

“Well, hell,” Nyx says, brushing a self-conscious hand through his hair. “I gotta meet this guy. Can you introduce us?”

Lunafreya laughs at that and takes him by the hand.

“It shall cost you a dance, good sir.”

“I guess I can manage that,” Nyx shrugs, spinning her around, and her skirts fly. The music in the ballroom picks up again. “With a good partner. Lucky for me, I know the best.”

“You will have to introduce me,” Lunafreya says, and Nyx tugs her close with a laugh.

“I can arrange that,” he promises, hand finding her waist, and they spin wild circles across the empty balcony, music lilting and bright as they dance an old, familiar dance from Galahd, and among the flowers and the laughter and the music they are the only two people in the world.

* * *

(”You have been holding out on me,” Luna says when the song ends, winded and exhilarated. “You dance very well.”

“It’s a dance from home,” he says, almost apologetic. “I’m afraid it’s about the only kind I know.”

“Then you shall have to teach me all the Galahdian dances,” she says.

“All of them?” he asks, and there’s a wicked glint in his eye.

 _Yes_ , she wants to say,  _Yes, all of them, every one_. But instead she kisses him again, smiling against his lips, because she can, and because that, truly, is answer enough.)


End file.
